| Various surgical options exist to correct pathologies of the aortic valve, including mechanical or biological valve implantation, reconstruction of the native vessels, and a combination of the two. Additionally, finite-element analysis and, to some extent, fluid-structure interaction (FSI) analyses have been used in the past to analyze how these procedures may affect various engineering metrics such as tissue stresses and opening and closing dynamics of the valves. In this work, a similar type of model and analysis is performed, however, in addition to modeling the actions of the aortic valve, coronary flows are also considered. By incorporating these vessels, it is possible to examine coronary flow perturbations to mechanical and geometric model variations and to assess certain surgical procedures in regards to a new clinically relevant metric. |
